


Spokes in Two Wheels

by Masu_Trout



Category: Deus Ex (Video Games)
Genre: Complicated Relationships, F/F, Genderswap, Post-Canon, Rule 63, Yuletide Treat
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-02
Updated: 2019-01-02
Packaged: 2019-09-26 23:04:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,053
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17150756
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Masu_Trout/pseuds/Masu_Trout
Summary: Eve cut a striking figure, striding out of the Apex Centre with blood trickling down her cheek and Nathaniel Brown's arm thrown over her shoulder.In the aftermath of the Safe Harbour attack, Sarif takes some time to catch up with an old friend. But her visit reopens old wounds—and gives an old enemy a chance to strike.





	Spokes in Two Wheels

**Author's Note:**

  * For [originally](https://archiveofourown.org/users/originally/gifts).



> Many, _many_ thanks to [cher](https://archiveofourown.org/users/cher/pseuds/cher), who helped me out immensely by betaing this fic.

Sarif Industries was in the news again—and, for the first time since 2027, it wasn't as part of some dumbass's thinkpiece on the _Dangerous Legacy of Augmentation Technology_ or a misinformation-filled news report about augmentations being sold on the black market.

Dana flicked to the next page of her morning newspaper with one gold-accented finger, smiling when she caught sight of the picture attached to the article. Even through Dana's disposable screen's low-quality resolution, Eve cut a striking figure, striding out of the Apex Centre with blood trickling down her cheek and Brown himself's arm thrown over her shoulder.

 _Agent Jensen, former Sarif Industries employee, helps hostages from the building_ , read the caption below. Further down, there was all sorts of speculation on her involvement—was she a government agent, the author asked, or did she have some connection with Augmented terrorist Viktor Marchenko, given their shared physicalities?

With an ungraceful snort, Dana dropped the paper back onto the table. Trust a Picus subsidiary to fill even this kind of news with fearmongering bullshit.

Still, her eyes lingered on the screen as she drank her coffee, staring not at the article but at the picture of Eve. People would take notice of this, Dana was sure. Even with Picus trying to force the _terrorist_ aspect of it all, even with Hugh's old friends digging up whatever they could find to try and tarnish Eve's image, there was no suppressing the fact that an Augmented special agent had been the linchpin in dismantling ARC's. That an augmented woman had been instrumental in saving the lives of thousands.

And Eve...

Dana swallowed. The photographer had done a good job; Eve looked almost as arresting—as _imposing_ —in it as she did in real life. This photo was going to end up on Cassan’s show, whether the Illuminati liked it or not; people were already talking about it too much for it not to be news.

Eve deserved a phone call, Dana decided. Not to _intrude_ , of course. Just to make sure everything was still working properly, that Eve's enhancements didn't need any kind of maintenance more complex than whatever doctor she'd managed to find in Prague could provide. The current crop of ex-Sarif-employees was made of tougher stuff than most, but even a woman like Eve would've found Marchenko to be one hell of an opponent. With everything that had happened at the Apex Centre, Dana at least owed Eve a friendly check-in.

After she was done with her coffee, Dana told herself, and finished it without lingering over it at all.

\---

Eve picked up, which was one hell of a lucky break considering how busy this whole mess had to be keeping her. She was a wearing a black sports bra, shorts, and absolutely nothing else, with a towel slung over the back of her neck and a water bottle held in the crook of her arm. Sweat dripped down her forehead, her shoulders, her collar bones.

 _A lucky break_ , Dana thought. No kidding.

Then Eve turned to stare at the screen, lenses flicking away to show her eyes, and Dana's breath stopped. The whole left side of her face was one great mottled bruise. Blood pooled in the bags under her eyes and in the hexagonal imprint high on her forehead. She looked like she'd been hit by a dump truck, which probably wasn't too far from the truth. From the rumors going through the (splintered-but-still-existent) human enhancement community, Marchenko's augmentations borrowed a lot from the big pre-Incident construction companies' designs.

And yeah, Dana'd seen her looking worse—shot in the head with her torso a mess of meat and glass, the memory of that fucking day still gave her nightmares occasionally. But still, this was... this was _bad_. Now that she was looking for it, Dana could see the other places where she'd been hit—fading bruises and rough red mottling marked the places her Sentinel had been quicker to fix up.

For a moment it was all Dana could do to stay seated against the overwhelming might of the voice in her head screaming at her to find whatever shitty little cell the London authorities had shoved Viktor Marchenko in and strangle him herself. Never mind that Eve didn't work for her anymore, or that they maybe hadn't parted on the best of terms. Eve was one of Dana's people, and Dana took care of her people.

Eve raised an eyebrow, staring at Dana staring at her. "Sarif." There was a hint of a question in the way she said her name.

"Eve!" Dana said, forcing a smile back onto her face. She twirled a lock of hair around her fingers as she spoke, desperate for something to do with her hands that wasn't clenching them so tight the joints strained. "I saw you in the news. Good bit of work you did there."

"Yeah." Eve didn't sound all too pleased about it.

"What, you don't agree? You saved a lot of people, dear, and pissed _them_ off pretty badly doing it. You should be proud."

One of Eve's sleek hands rose up to brush against the bruising on her cheek. "It's just been a long day."

"I'll bet." Dana glanced at the scenery visible behind Eve. Gone were the oversized sofa and wooden rafters of previous vidcalls, replaced by off-beige carpet and spackled walls that were a good fifty years out of date. "What, are they sticking you into witness protection or something? Should you be talking to me right now?"

One corner of Eve's mouth pulled into a grin. "Not yet. Though I'm sure they'd like to try. I'm stuck in London still."

Ah. Dana should've recognized the hotel decor. Though, in fairness, this didn't look like the class of hotel she normally stayed in.

She glanced around at her own hotel room, the high ceilings and hardwood floors. Debating with herself. (It would be easy to figure out where Eve was staying, and even easier to call a cab. The beds in that roach-infested hotel couldn't be good for a recovering woman's back, after all, and there was room to spare here. It would only be kind to extend an offer. Surely Eve wouldn't be mad if she just _offered_... but no, she could be, and she would be. She could be aggravatingly stubborn that way.)

"What," she asked instead, "boss not letting you go?"

"My boss is in the hospital," Eve said, rather pointedly. After a moment, she sighed and pressed her hand to the bridge of her nose before wincing away. "My boss's boss. He's... determined." She gave him a significant look.

Eve wasn't quite sure they weren't being bugged, then, though Dana was sure she would've done a sweep of the whole hall before settling down in her room for even a moment. Smart. And Dana caught her drift anyway.

"What's his name?"

"Manderley," Eve offered.

"Ugh. Shit. _Seriously_?"

Eve blinked. "What, you know him?"

"I wouldn't say that. But he's got a reputation."

Crooked as hell, for one. Anti-Aug, anti-progress, but willing to turn a blind eye to any manner of things provided his palms got a little grease in return. He'd been a customs officer, back in the day, and Dana had sure as hell never made use of his _services_ —Sarif Industries was above that, when you had quality work you didn't need dirty money—but she knew other companies had. Hugh had smuggled his Hyron prisoners through Manderley, or through another small-minded imbecile just like him.

"Huh." Eve scowled. God, she looked exhausted. "Well, he deserves it. He's been asking me a lot of questions."

Questions designed to wear her down, no doubt. To give his masters more ammunition to use against Eve than just the matter of her previous association with Sarif Industries. (With Dana.) And Eve was trapped there, having to deal with him, day in and day out.

"Dear," she said, before she could stop herself, "come to dinner tonight."

Eve's eyes narrowed. "With _you_? You're _in London_?"

Dana waved a hand at the screen. "I've been in London. I was supposed to be at that party of Brown's, but"—she scowled—"apparently my presence is a little too _controversial_ for some people."

After all, why bother having any Augmented guests at your big fundraiser for Augmented rights? Or, at least, any guests who weren't suitably grateful to the investors for their presence; Dana imagined Brown had managed to book any number of Augmented veterans, or athletes, or performers willing to rub nanocarbon elbows with his guests. But the former head of Sarif Industries, a woman who stood as a living reminder of a time not so long ago when the Augmented had been envied instead of scorned... she was a different beast entirely. Brown hadn't said it in so many words, but she'd understood his meaning clear as day.

Brown managed to do good work, when he wasn't busy being stuck up his own ass. He was an important ally to have. But he was also an absolutely insufferable coward more often than not—he bowed to every investor's pressure, promised absurd things because it was easier than arguing. It was a wonder he hadn't ended up an ally of the Illuminati just by merit of being too afraid to tell them no. (Dana could show him a thing or two about pushing back; she'd scraped her way up from the bottom, from a dingy one-room apartment in Boston to her own goddamn city block, and Hugh's stupid scheme might've cost her everything but she was clawing it back one investment at a time.)

"Huh," Eve grunted. She said, almost reluctantly, "Well. I'm glad you weren't there."

The way she was looking at Dana, out of the corner of her eye, the slumped relief written into the lines of her beautiful shoulders—she was as good as saying, _I'm glad you didn't die_. That was one of those things Dana would've taken for granted once; Eve had put one hell of a lot of effort into keeping her alive back in the good old days. Things had been a bit awkward between them recently, though, what with Eve completely failing to let Dana know she hadn't died in the goddamn Arctic Ocean and all that.

If she was being honest with herself, she sometimes thought things had been awkward between them even before that. She'd always known Eve wasn't the sort who'd volunteer herself for heavy augmentation, no matter who she worked for, but with her stretched out on the operating table and bleeding out Dana'd sort of assumed the _congratulations, I saved your life_ aspect of it would outweigh the rest of it whenever—if ever—Eve found out. Eve wasn't vain, after all, or shallow. She wasn't the sort to worry about a few extra scars, or whether or not her enhancements would stay fashionable as trends evolved. (Though they would, of course; Dana had fitted her with an absolutely timeless-looking set.) But things had gotten tense regardless, when Eve discovered just how much Dana had enhanced her, and none of Dana's attempts at making it up to Eve seemed to bridge that cold gap.

Taking Eve to dinner probably wouldn't be the fix either. But she wanted to do it anyway.

" _I'm_ not glad. I miss getting to watch you work." Dana sighed. "It's not the same, reading about it after."

Eve rolled her eyes at the praise, but the corner of her mouth quirked upwards. "Yeah, I'm sure. Where's the fun in life if you're not getting shot at, right?"

"No risk, no reward." She leaned towards her screen, and towards Eve on the other side of it. "Come on. One night. A chance to eat something other than whatever garbage the UN's expense account is willing to reimburse you."

"Out of the goodness of your heart, right?"

"Out of my desire to hear every last bit of gossip floating around about the attack. It'll benefit us both."

"Well," Eve said. She hesitated. "I guess that's fine, then."

Dana beamed. " _Excellent._ Seven o' clock tonight. I'll pick you up."

With a jaunty wave, she hung up before Eve could have a chance to argue.

\---

Leaning against the brick facade of TF29's budget hotel of choice, cigarette glowing cherry red between her fingers and eyes hidden behind sleek reflective lenses, Eve looked like a shark in a pond full of minnows. The hotel's guests veered off as they approached the door she was closest to, avoiding not just her but a circle of space she'd cut out for herself just by existing.

Dana took great delight in breaking that invisible barrier; she slipped out of the car, leaving her chauffeur to idle there, and walked right up to Eve. She left just enough room between them to keep the worst of the cigarette smoke from clinging to her clothing. (Another benefit of the augmentations: Eve didn't have to worry about dying from lung cancer anymore.)

"Eve, dear," she said, "it's so good to see you. It's been too long."

The words hung in the air between them for a moment, awkward for how true they were; the last time she'd seen Eve in person was the night the world ended.

Eve nodded, then stubbed her cigarette out. "Good to see you too."

Dana eyed the hotel. It was sure to be bristling with cameras, Interpol and Illuminati and a dozen different organizations alike. Hell, she wouldn't be surprised if the damn Juggernaut Collective had some eyes on the building here; this whole barely-averted disaster had turned the world's attention on London, on ARC, and on TF29 in equal measure.

"You sure your boss won't have a problem with me borrowing you? Or your boss's boss, or whatever."

Eve snorted. "If he minds, he minds. I don't know what else he thinks I'm going to suddenly be able to tell him at this point."

She knew what answers he was after. They both knew. But Eve was putting on a performance, playing up that innocence to an audience of electronic observers. With her eyes' capabilities, she must've been able to see all the spots where they clung to the walls or lurked on top of windowsills.

It felt right, walking to her car beside Eve. Like they were back to the way they were supposed to be. Swing by Detroit to grab Frank, lure Faridah out of whatever hidey-hole she'd managed to get herself into, and her whole team could be right where she wanted them again.

Still. Even just having Eve was good. No, better than good. Fucking _great_.

"What've you been up to?" Eve asked her as she slid into the front seat—the same way they'd used to ride, back when she'd worked for Dana. The chauffeur shot Eve an alarmed look as he peeled out of the parking lot. "Other than—you know."

Eve drummed her fingers against the window as she spoke, filling the car with the sound of metal-on-glass.

"Glad you asked," Dana said with a smile. She filled the space between them with empty, easy talk: the places she'd been lately, the people she'd met, the deals she'd made. Her mind was hardly on what she was saying, though. All she could think about was the sharp, attentive look in Eve's eyes, and how good it felt to have that gaze turned on her once more.

Dana'd taught herself a script when she was growing up, a list of rules as precise and detailed as any schematic that helped her balance the twin tightrope acts of engineering and business. She learned how to apply makeup that would make it look like she wasn't wearing any, she learned how to tell when speaking her mind would gain her respect and when it would get her called a _fucking bitch_ while her back was turned, she learned how to claw power from the hands of those who would patronize her.

Eve... Eve did none of those things. Hair cropped short, face bare, she'd built—and lost—her first career on being so doggedly stubborn in following her morals that no one could hope to challenge her. When Dana'd hired her, it'd been entirely for her genes; she'd had no illusions that a woman like the one Megan had introduced her to would be able to survive in Sarif Industries’ cut-throat corporate world.

But survive Eve had. And she'd become not only a valuable asset but an unprecedentedly painful thorn in the Illuminati's side. It made Dana smile to imagine how sore her latest stunt must've left them; made her hands curl into fists at her sides, too, imagining what retaliation they might be planning.

Dana was just finishing up a story about a company she'd backed out of investing in when they pulled into the restaurant's parking lot. Eve's eyeshields slid back into place as she stepped out of the car, but even through them Dana could see the skepticism in her eyes.

"Look," Dana said, laying a friendly hand on Eve's shoulder, "you'll love it, I promise."

"I'm not sure they'll let us in."

"I know the owner. They'll let us in."

 _Alchrome_ was an upscale restaurant set in the heart of London, not quite as fancy as the places Dana preferred but definitely outside of Eve's norm. Tonight, Dana was compromising. Eclectic, modern lighting, walls painted with murals of the nightlife of a hundred years ago—and a host who caught sight of them entering, looked at their matching black-and-gold arms and Eve's eyeshields, and grimaced as he hurried towards them.

" _Ma'am_ ," he snapped, sounding for all the world like he was wishing he could call them something much less polite, "please, you can't be here—"

Eve grimaced, already turning back towards the door.

Dana smiled. "That's _Doctor_ Sarif, actually," she said, her words polite and her tone dripping with venom, "and I believe you're expecting me?"

The host blanched. It was comical, really, the way the blood drained from his face, like he'd sprung a leak in his neck. "You're," he said, and then, "ah," and then, "of course, please let me..."

"We'll take a private room, please."

"A private room," the host echoed, "of course. That would probably be"—another glance towards them, this time at Eve's obvious milspec enhancements, and he swallowed down his words—"good, yes. Private. I can do that for you."

"I didn't know you had a doctorate," Eve murmured to her as the host led them across the dining room.

"Massachusetts Institute of Technology, PhD in biomechanical sciences," she whispered back. With a grin, she added, "Honorary, but he doesn't need to know that."

Eve shook her head, a tilt to her mouth. For her, that was as good as if she'd laughed out loud.

The room their host led them to was small and elegant, separated from the main dining area with a set of paneled doors. Glass screens set into the table let guests order without being disturbed. Eve stopped still a moment, scanning the room, and then with a shrug she sat down in the chair nearest the door.

Not bugged, then. Or, at least, not any more bugged than everywhere else was these days.

Dana slid into a chair opposite Eve, slinging her purse onto the seat next to her. She watched with a smile as their host fled. From the look of things, Eve was already in the middle of ordering two or three different dishes; a metabolism like hers had to be hell on a shoestring budget, especially with how much energy she'd expended recently. Dana punched in her own order, then leaned over the table with her head propped up on her hands.

"So, dear," she said, "I told you what I've been doing. How are things going for you?"

For a moment, Eve was still. Her eyesshields retracted with a soft whir of electronics. She glanced towards the door once more, and then she said, perfectly casually, "I think Manderley's going to have me killed."

It sounded like a joke, the cool way she said it. Dana almost laughed. But then she caught the tension in the corner of Eve's eyes, the not-casual-at-all-way her hands were curled around the edge of the table.

"Shit," she said. "They're moving that quickly?"

Eve shrugged. "They tried already, once before, with an experimental poison, but I got lucky. And then, my boss—he got dosed with the same poison at the gala. They haven't told the press yet."

An experimental poison. Christ.

"So he's dead, then." Dana tried to muster up some sympathy for the man she'd never met, but she didn't try particularly hard.

Eve's new boss. Huh. Couldn't be _that_ good a boss if he'd went and gotten himself dosed with something like that.

"No." Eve shook her head. "No, I got him the antidote in time."

"There's an _antidote_? How the hell did you get that?"

An odd expression crossed Eve's face. She kept silent for one second, two, staring up at the lights embedded in the low ceiling, and then finally she said, "I... found it."

That didn't seem so bad. Eve had _found_ Dana evidence before, back in the old days. And then Eve added, tonelessly, "It's one of Megan's new projects for VersaLife," and suddenly her hesitance made sense.

"God," Dana said, "you're serious."

"I don't think she planned it to be used that way."

"Christ, Eve, who cares what she planned it for? She could have gotten you _killed_! You can't just put something like that out into the world and not _give a fuck_ —"

"Can't you?" Eve asked, looking her head-on.

Dana grimaced. She wanted to take the bait, ask Eve what exactly she meant by that, but—

Her eyes dropped down to Eve's sleek black hands. They matched Dana's perfectly. She'd always had a favorite aesthetic.

"Look," Dana said, "all I'm saying is that if there's some kind of new super-poison out there, and the only reason you had an antidote is because you _found_ one somewhere..."

"It's not good news. And now that they've realized they'll have to go through me to get to Miller..."

"They're ready to go right through you."

"Exactly."

"So what're you going to do, then?"

Eve made a noncommittal noise in the back of her throat. "Keep going."

Dana stared at her for a long, long moment, hoping that perhaps some actual coherent plan would start pouring from Eve's mouth if she just looked at her the right way. "That's it?" she asked finally, when no plan seemed ready to show itself.

"What else can I do?"

A lot of things. Stop acting like this was no big deal, for one. Dana had spent most of her life spiting the Illuminati; she'd turned Hugh down when he came to her, just after her graduation, and spoke to her about _power_ and _oversight_ , and then she’d gone on to be successful without those assholes' help. Sometimes you had to forget just how fragile your life was in the face of their overwhelming reach, because otherwise it drove you crazy. But this... this was some serious shit. Eve was in danger _now_.

"Look," Dana said, "I..." She reached out, then, without any sort of conscious thought. Her hands brushed against the backs of Eve's; two of Dana's finest designs, finally in the same room together. Finally complete.

She'd never mentioned as much Eve, but the set of enhancements she'd designed for herself after Panchaea took her other arm had been made with Eve's in mind. From material to shape to aesthetics, they matched more perfectly than any other set of augmented limbs in the world.

Before she could figure out what she wanted to say, the doors burst open. A harried-looking waitstaff stepped inside, her eyes immediately flicking to Eve and Dana's hands on top of the table. After a moment too long of the stranger's staring, Eve pulled away and tucked her hands neatly back under the table. The lenses of her eyeshields snapped back into place.

"Ah," the waitress said, faltering, her words tilting into a question, "your food is ready?"

Dana had hated people more than she hated this person right now: Hugh, Namir, that bastard Taggart. It was a close competition, though.

"Bring it in," Dana sighed.

The moment, whatever it had been, was lost. Dana ate her risotto and talked of light, unimportant things, never bringing up the danger Eve was in or how much the thought of losing her scared Dana. Eve ate dinner enough for three people—lobster bisque, gnocchi, beef check served in wine—and spoke only as much as she had to. It was like some part of her had retreated back into herself, back behind the mask of the perfect, unaffected agent that she wore so often during her vidcalls with Dana.

They left the restaurant with an uneasy silence hanging between them and a dining room's worth of frightened eyes boring into their backs. Eve sat in the front seat again on the drive back to her hotel, but this time it felt different. Less protective, more distant.

The tourists hanging around the hotel were all long gone by the time they pulled back up to it, gone to their rooms or to one of London’s nightclubs. The streets were dark and quiet. Before Eve could slip out of the car, Dana caught her shoulder.

"Wait," she said.

Eve looked at her, eyes still hidden.

"Just—be careful."

For a moment Eve was silent, and then she said, "Yeah. You too."

She shook Dana's arm off easily. Dana watched as she disappeared through the hotel's doors.

Her own hotel wasn't very far away, but the ride back seemed long. Her room, when she stepped inside, felt emptier than it had this morning.

Before Dana went to bed that night, she filtered through the news feed settings on her hotel room's massive glass-screened TV. Any story with the keyword _Eve Jensen_ attached was to add itself to a queue for her to check on waking. Any story with _Eve Jensen_ and _dead_ in the keywords was to wake her immediately.

It would be too late, by then, but—she'd rather know. Just in case.

\---

It didn't take long for Eve's prediction to come true, and by _not long_ Dana meant _about six hours_. A harsh mechanical noise cut through Dana's uneasy sleep, pulling her back ungracefully to her body.

Her first thought was, _It's too early for this._ Her second thought was, _Oh, god, no._

"Turn on," she snapped, rolling out from under the covers, her heart racing in her chest. "Show story alert."

Eliza Cassan's smug, perfect face flickered onto her screen, already in the middle of speaking. "In a shocking twist that has officials stunned and horrified, Eve Jensen, Prague's Augmented hero officer who's been praised for her role in stopping ARC's most-recent terrorist attack, is now being implicated as an accessory to the attack and as a co-conspirator in a plot to murder more than a hundred Natural civilians attending the Safe Harbour Convention. We bring you to expert James Crison for the story—"

"Off," Dana snapped, cutting the screen to black before she could see anymore. "Dial contact Eve Jensen."

Dana's face was bare, her hair was tangled. She looked like a goddamn mess, standing in the middle of her hotel bedroom in a fucking chemise trying to vidcall Eve at four in the morning. This had to be a nightmare. She'd call Eve up and Eve would tell her she was being overdramatic, it was all an obvious fake, it'd blow over in a day—

The phone rang once. Twice.

"Sarif," Eve said over the sound of pouring rain. The screen stayed static; voice chat only.

"Eve. Where are you? What the hell's going on?"

It was raining outside, wasn't it? Dana rushed the few steps to the window and pulled the corner of the curtain away. The streetlights far below illuminated fresh puddles on the pavement.

 _Okay_ , Dana thought, sucking in a deep breath. She was still in London, then. Not too far for Dana to help.

"I'm sorry." Eve was breathing heavy. "I shouldn’t have gotten you into this."

"What are you talking about?"

"The restaurant. They've got footage of us going in. The host told them about the private room."

" _Fuck_ ," Dana hissed.

Clever of them, letting two of their targets meet. Then, when they dragged one down, the other would get pulled along with them. She could already imagine the headlines: _ARC Sympathiser Meets With Augmented Millionaire. Sarif Industries Terrorist Ties?_ Except...

"They haven't caught you," Dana said.

"Not yet. One of my coworkers let me go. He didn't believe what they were saying about me."

"Okay. Listen, Eve—"

At the same time as Dana spoke, Eve said, "Look, Sarif. I've got to go."

" _Go_? Where are you going?"

Dana could practically feel Eve's shrug on the other end of the line. "I—look, I'll figure it out. I won't let them catch me, don't worry."

"Figure it out? Eve, you can't just make this disappear."

Dana stopped dead as it hit her what Eve meant. She wasn't planning to outrun this, or escape this. She knew she was going to die; she was just trying to keep them from taking anyone else down with her.

"We can work together," she said desperately. "Let me help you, Eve, we can figure this out. We can... we can fight back. We're both in this together."

It made sense. It was nothing she'd planned, but it made _sense_. They worked well together; hell, they were amazing together. The two of them would be stronger this way—if there was a way to beat this, they'd find it. (And there had to be a way to beat this. Dana didn't give up. Ever.)

"I don't know if that's a good idea," Eve said quietly.

"Are you kidding? It's the best option, you know it as well as I do. Come on, Eve, please. Let me help you."

 _Let me protect you._ Dana was pacing back and forth in her hotel room now, moving like she could find her way to Eve's side with just the right pattern of steps.

"Sarif, look—"

"I know we didn't part on the best terms," Dana said, "but, come on, that was years ago."

"Sarif," Eve snapped, ice in her voice. "Look. _If_ we were going to work together again."

"Yes?"

"It'd have to be no contracts. No fine print. No lawyers or—whatever."

"Okay," Dana said.

" _Okay_? That's it?"

"Jeez, Eve, what do you want me to say? I'm agreeing with you here."

"I don't want you to _agree with me_ ," Eve snarled. "I want you to—"

She stopped, then, breathing deep, coldly silent on the other end of the line.

Dana didn't know what to say. Her helplessness hit her harder than if Eve had punched her in the face.

She'd known, after all, that Eve had taken issue with everything that happened after the Tyrants' attack on the labs. Dana had been aware it would be a possibility and she'd gone ahead with it anyway, because the alternative—to give Eve a heart and an arm and no more, to keep her miserably fragile and unprepared for the shadow war brewing around them both, to leave the potential locked away in Eve's body _unfulfilled_ —would have been a tragedy. She'd had plans for dealing with whatever might come up. Money, if Eve wanted money. Reasons, if Eve wanted reasons.

Except none of those plans had helped her one bit.

Eve wasn't a shareholder looking for answers, or an entrepreneur looking for money, or some Illuminati agent looking for Dana's head on a platter. She was only herself, as human as any woman Dana had ever met; she stood on the streets of London, being hunted like an animal, and still she refused to back down. Dana knew her perfectly and not at all.

Dana understood what Eve wanted from her. It wasn't remorse or shame she was looking for, just... acknowledgment. Not _mistakes were made_ , but _I fucked up_.

She didn't know how to say it and make Eve believe her, though. Hell, she wasn't sure she believed it herself. There was a reason she'd done things the way she had back then, after all, a reason she couldn't have taken any other path.

Wasn't there?

"Look," Dana said, wishing an assassin would break down her door and shoot her in the head just for the distraction it would provide. "What happened, back then... it won't happen again. Any of it."

Eve was silent a long, long moment, preternaturally still, without even her breathing audible over the line.

"All right," she said. "What's the plan, then?"

For a moment, Dana almost said, _Wait, that's it?_ She caught herself before she could shoot her own foot off, though, and instead what poured from her mouth was the beginnings of a plan.

"Look, you're out, right? Can you make it to the Thames?"

"I've got power enough to cloak it there."

"Great. I've got a contract with a shipping company there, they'll turn a blind eye to some extra cargo if I tell them to. You'll have to make it past the customs checks, but—"

"Yeah," Eve said. "I can manage that."

Dana had never taken advantage of this company's under-the-table operations before. She wasn't the sort of scum who smuggled augmentations. Except, apparently, if they were attached to people she cared about.

"Be careful," Dana told her.

"What about you?" The noise on the other end of the line told Dana that Eve was already moving.

"I'm going to get out of here. They're not actively looking for me yet, if I get out of the country before they start they'll have a hell of a time trying to drag me back here." Dana needed to get moving too, come to think of it; she pulled her suitcase out from its spot in the closet, opened it wide and started throwing everything she couldn't leave without into it. Clothes could be replaced, jewelry could be replaced—it was electronics she had to be careful about, anything that could reveal the slightest hint of information about her. "I'll contact you once I'm somewhere secure. How do you feel about heading back to America for a while? The way US-UK relations have been lately, there's no way they'll be able to extradite me no matter what kind of evidence they fabricate."

"I'm sorry," Eve said. "I didn't mean to get you caught up in this."

Dana laughed. "I've been caught up in this since you were in elementary school."

"Still."

Dana knew what Eve meant. It scared her too if she let herself think about it for more than a second.

This was going to change things permanently. Her social life, her business, her freedoms—all those were already starting to crumble before her eyes. It was The Incident all over again, but this time she wouldn't be allowed to get her feet back under her. Not unless she crushed the ones trying to stop her.

"Look, Eve," Dana said, "I know I haven't always exactly picked the best ways to show it"—Eve snorted—"but..."

Dana stood in the center of her hotel room, hands full of luggage, feeling so impossibly connected to Eve and yet utterly alone.

"I do care," she finished. It was as much as she could bring herself to say right now, when she wasn't sure whether they'd ever see each other again. When she wasn't sure if they'd even be alive to see each other twenty-four hours from now.

"Okay," Eve said. She sucked in a little breath, like she wanted to add something more. "I... I'll see you soon. Dana."

Without another word, she cut the call.

Dana smiled into the darkness of her hotel room, into the space in the silence where Eve had been a moment before. "I'll see you soon," she echoed.

She didn't know if that was true. But when she said it like that, it sounded like a promise.


End file.
